The present invention relates to an interactive system and more particularly to an emotion emulator for producing pseudo-emotions of an artificial agent in an interactive information input/output system using the personified agent.
Heretofore, there have been utilized input means such as keyboard and mouse for helping users communicate with information processing units, and display screens such as CRTs as means of making processing units display symbolic information in response, so that various operations are performed in an interactive mode.
However, the recent development of information processing environment is attaining the stage of fostering machine-to-man coordination by putting into practice the exchange of mutual intentions between the information unit or a machine and the user or a human, using a wide range of information including emotions.
Some of the interactive systems that have been proposed so far are arranged so that a personified artificial agent (hereinafter simply called "agent") appears on the screen and speaks to users by means of its image and speech synthesis (e.g., Suenaga et al., Collection of Papers, Vol. J75 - D - II, No. 2, 190 - 202, Feb., 1992, Electronic Communication Society).
With respect to a system capable of voice conversation, Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication Hei-2-83727/(1990), for example, discloses what provides a natural speaking face image by controlling the lip movement of an agent on a display screen in accordance with an utterance resulting from speech synthesis on the part of the system.
As studies in models of artificial emotion, a model of artificial emotion with the application of the harmony theory has been referred to by Mogi and Hara in "Shingaku Technical Report HC91-42," and a method of mapping between the mood and the facial expressions has also been proposed by Kitamura et al. in "Trial of Forming Facial Expressions Using Models of Emotion" (Collection of Preliminary Papers, Meeting in Spring 1992, Electronic Data Communication Society).
Nevertheless, an interactive system incorporating pseudo-emotion into an electronic agent still remains unreported.
The agent as a partner of conversation in the conventional interactive system with such an electronic agent only gives utterance accompanied with a simple variation of facial expression but it is not given the power of expressing pseudo-emotion after the human emotion model. In consequence, the personification of the agent as viewed from the user is not thoroughgoing and the agent lacking in emotional expressions has not only little affinity for the novice user but also weak power to encourage users in general to input information actively. The problem is that smooth exchange of intentions is unlikely.